Europe drives institutional crypto adoption: Blockchain Expo Amsterdam
Europe remains fertile ground for the cryptocurrency ecosystem to flourish compared with harsher regulatory environments, according to prominent speakers at Blockchain Expo Europe 2023 in Amsterdam.
Cointelegraph attended the event held at the RAI Amsterdam convention center for the second year running, with the Blockchain Expo forming part of a larger Tech Expo event being hosted in the Netherlands.
The event has typically attracted prominent mainstream industry players from the financial world to showcase how blockchain technology is being leveraged to power innovative new products and solutions across a myriad of industries.
From finance, logistics, healthcare and marketing, blockchain technology and Web3 functionality continues to be a key growth area for different industry players.
MiCA bodes well for institutional adoption
Regulatory matters remain front and center, as was evident in a fireside chat featuring Coinbase institutional sales co-head James Morek and Zodia Markets co-founder Nick Philpott.
Philpott described the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulations as a progressive regulatory measure to guide the growth of the sector while protecting users.
“Institutions feel more comfortable knowing that there is a framework within which they can operate, which is at odds with what is happening in countries like America.”
Philpott’s reference to the United States’ regulatory landscape centered on a cloud of uncertainty over the cryptocurrency ecosystem. This has been primarily driven by the Securities and Exchange Commission’s separate enforcement actions against key industry players, including Coinbase, Ripple and Binance.US, for alleged securities violations.
Morek, who heads up Coinbase’s institutional sales in the EMEA and APAC regions, also highlighted the establishment of clear regulatory parameters across the EU and in the United Kingdom, which have helped crypto-related firms continue to do business.
Off-the-record conversations also suggest that major players like Coinbase continue attracting interest from institutional clients looking to gain exposure or custody of certain cryptocurrencies outside the United States.
Related: EU’s new crypto law: How MiCA can make Europe a digital asset hub
This includes many potential clients, ranging from traditional fund managers, large corporations, private banks and a variety of businesses. Morek told Cointelegraph that Coinbase currently serves over 1,300 institutional customers globally.
Legal frameworks that have long allowed companies to have both onshore and offshore entities continue to be an important element in allowing cryptocurrency exchanges and companies to offer services in different jurisdictions.
Philpott also highlighted the United Arab Emirates as a fast-growing crypto and Web3 hub actively looking to attract the biggest firms in the industry. Binance has already established a foothold in the UAE, while Coinbase was reportedly exploring setting up a base of operations in the jurisdiction earlier in 2023.
A tokenized future
Tokenization remains a drawcard for various institutions, including mainstream banks and financial firms looking to issue and manage debt and investments.
Cointelegraph also spoke to Martijn Siebrand, digital assets ecosystem manager of Dutch bank ABN AMRO. He shared insights into ABN AMRO’s recent issuance of a digital green bond using Polygon’s layer-2 Ethereum scaling technology to raise 5 million euros ($5.3 million).
Siebrand said that blockchain technology is proving to be a useful tool for banks to better serve capital markets:
“It’s funny, if we have now talks within the bank, people say capital markets have been there for a long time already yet we haven’t seen many innovations. This could be one major change where a lot of banks are investing in.“
Siebrand added that ABN AMRO is already showcasing its blockchain-based digital bond exploits at conferences and exhibitions to both capital market players like mainstream banks, as well as private companies looking to raise funds:
“We see two tracks. We have the institutional one serving traditional capital markets. But we also have the chance to help clients that are too big for crowdfunding but too small for capital markets.”
Siebrand added that tokenized debt offerings can be useful for companies that want to avoid selling equity. However, jurisdictional regulatory frameworks need to be further developed before ABN AMRO can create a working roadmap to further its blockchain tokenization offerings:
“We think that private markets involving private issuances, which are one-on-one or with two or three investors, that will be easier to to scale than the institutional one.”
NFTs remain valuable for institutions
Mia Van, EMEA lead for blockchain and digital assets at Mastercard, delved into the value of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) for institutional users. The sector has produced $1.9 billion in sales volumes over the past year, according to Van, with the average number of Web3 wallets increasing despite sellers dominating NFT marketplaces in recent months.
According to Van, luxury brands such as Breitling and Louis Vuitton actively use NFTs to provide digital twins of items that prove their provenance. Meanwhile, mainstream brands like Adidas and Nike continue to explore NFTs and metaverse activations that give users ownership of objects in both the physical world and metaverse environments.
Related: NFT-styled debit cards the future of Web3 — Animoca founder on $30M Hi investment
Mastercard is also becoming part and parcel of the Web3 ecosystem. Earlier this year, Animoca Brands announced a $30 million investment in neobank platform Hi. A unique offering of the platform is a customizable NFT-styled crypto debit card. Users can stylize their Mastercard with NFTs they digitally own, allowing them to show off that prized Bored Ape in the physical world.
Van would not be drawn to comment on Mastercard’s blockchain and digital asset strategy and partnerships.
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Politics
‘More people should be given this chance’: The probation centres transforming offenders’ lives
The combination of full prisons and tight public finances has forced the government to urgently rethink its approach.
Top of the agenda for an overhaul are short sentences, which look set to give way to more community rehabilitation.
The cost argument is clear – prison is expensive. It’s around £60,000 per person per year compared to community sentences at roughly £4,500 a year.
But it’s not just saving money that is driving the change.
Research shows short custodial terms, especially for first-time offenders, can do more harm than good, compounding criminal behaviour rather than acting as a deterrent.
Charlie describes herself as a former ‘junkie shoplifter’
This is certainly the case for Charlie, who describes herself as a former “junkie, shoplifter from Leeds” and spoke to Sky News at Preston probation centre.
She was first sent down as a teenager and has been in and out of prison ever since. She says her experience behind bars exacerbated her drug use.
Charlie in February 2023
“In prison, I would never get clean. It’s easy, to be honest, I used to take them in myself,” she says. “I was just in a cycle of getting released, homeless, and going straight back into trap houses, drug houses, and that cycle needs to be broken.”
Eventually, she turned her life around after a court offered her drug treatment at a rehab facility.
She says that after decades of addiction and criminality, one judge’s decision was the turning point.
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“That was the moment that changed my life and I just want more judges to give more people that chance.”
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How to watch Sophy Ridge’s special programme live from Preston Prison
Also at Preston probation centre, but on the other side of the process, is probation officer Bex, who is also sceptical about short sentences.
“They disrupt people’s lives,” she says. “So, people might lose housing because they’ve gone to prison… they come out homeless and may return to drug use and reoffending.”
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Bex works with offenders to turn their lives around
Bex has seen first-hand the value of alternative routes out of crime.
“A lot of the people we work with have had really disjointed lives. It takes a long time for them to trust someone, and there’s some really brilliant work that goes on every single day here that changes lives.”
It’s people like Bex and Charlie, and places like Preston probation centre, that are at the heart of the government’s change in direction.
:: Watch special programme on prisons on Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge at 7pm
“As far as I’m concerned, there’s only three ways to spend the taxpayers’ hard-earned when it comes to prisons. More walls, more bars and more guards.”
Prison reform is one of the hardest sells in government.
Hospitals, schools, defence – these are all things you would put on an election leaflet.
Even the less glamorous end of the spectrum – potholes and bin collections – are vote winners.
But prisons? Let’s face it, the governor’s quote from the Shawshank Redemption reflects public polling pretty accurately.
Right now, however, reform is unavoidable because the system is at breaking point.
It’s a phrase that is frequently used so carelessly that it’s been diluted into cliche. But in this instance, it is absolutely correct.
Without some kind of intervention, the prison system is at breaking point.
It will break.
Inside Preston Prison
Ahead of the government’s Sentencing Review, expected to recommend more non-custodial sentences, I’ve been talking to staff and inmates at Preston Prison, a Category B men’s prison originally built in 1790.
Overcrowding is at 156% here, according to the Howard League.
Sophy Ridge talking outside Preston Prison
One prisoner I interviewed, in for burglary, was, until a few hours before, sharing his cell with his son.
It was his son’s first time in jail – but not his. He had been out of prison since he was a teenager. More than 30 years – in and out of prison.
His family didn’t like it, he said, and now he has, in his own words, dragged his son into it.
Sophie is a prison officer and one of those people who would be utterly brilliant doing absolutely anything, and is exactly the kind of person we should all want working in prisons.
She said the worst thing about the job is seeing young men, at 18, 19, in jail for the first time. Shellshocked. Mental health all over the place. Scared.
And then seeing them again a couple of years later.
And then again.
The same faces. The officers get to know them after a while, which in a way is nice but also terrible.
Sophy Ridge talking to one of the officers who works within Preston Prison
The £18bn spectre of reoffending
We know the stats about reoffending, but it floored me how the system is failing. It’s the same people. Again and again.
The Sentencing Review, which we’re just days away from, will almost certainly recommend fewer people go to prison, introducing more non-custodial or community sentencing and scrapping short sentences that don’t rehabilitate but instead just start people off on the reoffending merry-go-round, like some kind of sick ride.
But they’ll do it on the grounds of cost (reoffending costs £18bn a year, a prison place costs £60,000 a year, community sentences around £4,500 per person).
They’ll do it because prisons are full (one of Keir Starmer’s first acts was being forced to let prisoners out early because there was no space).
If the government wants to be brave, however, it should do it on the grounds of reform, because prison is not working and because there must be a better way.
Inside Preston Prison, Sky News saw first-hand a system truly at breaking point
A cold, hard look
I’ve visited prisons before, as part of my job, but this was different.
Before it felt like a PR exercise, I was taken to one room in a pristine modern prison where prisoners were learning rehabilitation skills.
This time, I felt like I really got under the skin of Preston Prison.
It’s important to say that this is a good prison, run by a thoughtful governor with staff that truly care.
But it’s still bloody hard.
“You have to be able to switch off,” one officer told me, “Because the things you see….”
Staff are stretched and many are inexperienced because of high turnover.
After a while, I understood something that had been nagging me. Why have I been given this access? Why are people being so open with me? This isn’t what usually happens with prisons and journalists.
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Probation centres answer to UK crime?
That’s when I understood.
They want people to know. They want people to know that yes, they do an incredible job and prisons aren’t perfect, but they’re not as bad as you think.
But that’s despite the government, not because of it.
Sometimes the worst thing you can do on limited resources is to work so hard you push yourself to the brink, so the system itself doesn’t break, because then people think ‘well maybe we can continue like this after all… maybe it’s okay’.
But things aren’t okay. When people say the system is at breaking point – this time it isn’t a cliche.
They really mean it.
:: Watch special programme on prisons on Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge at 7pm
Goldman Sachs-backed cryptocurrency custody firm BitGo is the latest cryptocurrency company to secure regulatory approval to operate across the European Union.
Germany’s financial regulator, the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), granted BitGo Europe a Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) license to provide digital asset services in the EU, the firm announced on May 12.
The license allows BitGo to offer services to crypto-native firms and traditional finance institutions, including banks and asset managers within the EU.
“This license underscores our commitment to the highest standards of security, transparency, and trust,” BitGo Europe managing director Harald Patt said.
BitGo set up the EU headquarters in 2023
Founded in 2013 in Palo Alto, California, BitGo is a major platform in the cryptocurrency industry specializing in crypto custodial services, holding cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) on behalf of its clients.
BitGo’s latest regulatory milestone in Europe follows efforts to increase its presence in the EU, including establishing local headquarters in Frankfurt in 2023.
Since setting up BitGo Europe in Germany, BitGo has received multiple registrations in EU states, including Italy, Spain, Poland and Greece.
“With the MiCA license now secured, BitGo can operate across the entire EU under a unified, forward-looking regulatory framework,” the firm said in the announcement.
“Broad range of institutional-grade solutions”
BitGo did not specify the services it intends to roll out immediately under the new MiCA license.
“BitGo’s MiCA licence comes at a pivotal moment as BitGo expands its product suite to offer a broad range of institutional-grade digital asset solutions,” the announcement added.
Related: Tether CEO defends decision to skip MiCA registration for USDT
As of May 12, BaFin’s official records did not yet reflect BitGo’s MiCA license, showing only earlier registrations.
Cointelegraph approached BitGo for additional details on its MiCA license but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
As previously mentioned, Germany has emerged as a major jurisdiction for European businesses seeking MiCA registration, with BaFin issuing licenses to several companies, including Bitpanda and Boerse Stuttgart Digital Custody, in 2025.
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